Mrs. Fatou Bensouda:

Most of our cases relate to the African continent. There has been a great deal of pushing back at African Union level in the context of co-operation with the ICC.

However, our experience on the ground is that in those individual African states with which we deal and to which we make direct specific requests, we do not have problems with that and get them to co-operate. In fact, 80% of the requests we make go to those countries and almost 100% come back positively. There are of course countries that do not wish to co-operate with the ICC, and typical of this is the case of Omar al-Bashir and Sudan. This case was a referral from the United Nations Security Council, and from the very beginning Sudan indicated it was not going to co-operate with the ICC. It does not feel it has an obligation to so do and consequently does not. The interesting thing about our investigations in Darfur was that we were obliged to investigate the case without going there. While it was very difficult and challenging, we were able to do that as there were many displaced persons who were out of Sudan - even in countries outside Africa - whom we were able to contact. We also were able to go to internally displaced person, IDP, camps, where we were able to get crime base witnesses. However, there are countries such as Sudan that do not wish to co-operate with the ICC.